Читать книгу Perfect Remains - Helen Fields - Страница 6

He laid out the body with almost fatherly care, stretching each limb wide, allowing air to circulate freely around her skin. She was ashen but peaceful, her eyelashes bold against the greyness of her face, lips colourless. He preferred it to the way she’d looked when they’d first met. The nakedness was unattractive, splayed as she was, but it was necessary. There should be no part of her left. No aspect of her past, no link to the life she was leaving. This was, in many ways, a cleansing. Very precisely, he aimed his foot above the middle of her left humerus, letting his whole weight bear down on her arm, feeling the crackle and shatter of it vibrate through the bones in his own leg. Only when satisfied that the pyre was perfectly prepared did he take the small silk pouch from his trouser pocket. Tipping the white gems into his hand, he rolled them between deft fingers and palm, enjoying the contrasting smoothness and sharpness, dropping them like pennies down a wishing well into her mouth, saving just one. It seemed a shame to burn such immaculate work but no flesh could be spared. He had soaked the body in accelerant overnight, marinating her, he’d joked, just in case someone stumbled in earlier than expected, not that he was so amateurish that it would happen.

As a last touch before leaving the stone cabin, he allowed a fragment of bloodied silk scarf to drift to the floor. Planting a heavy rock over it, he ground it into the earth. The grate of a struck match, the screech of ancient rusty hinges, the woof of flames consuming oxygen and it was done. He carried a metal baseball bat a reasonable distance away and covered it with rocks. He’d polished it free of fingerprints but, invisible to the naked eye and awaiting the black light that would illuminate it, a single smudge of blood remained on the handle. A few feet further and he relinquished the final tooth, sticky threads of gum tissue left dangling, then kicked a token sheet of dust over it. That would do.

There was a walk, not so very far but perilous in the dark, which made it slow. The air temperature was below freezing even in the foothills. His breath misted the sharp focus of the stars above him. It was a fine resting place for her, he thought. She was lucky. Few people left the world from such a viewpoint. Soon enough, the Cairngorms were disappearing behind him in the mist. When the first light hit them, they would turn purple-grey against the sky, barren and rocky, almost a moonscape. He watched in his mirror as the vast formations dipped into no more than shallow hills. This was his last visit here, he thought. A final farewell. It had proved to be the perfect location.

Edinburgh was still more than an hour away and there was rain forecast, not that it would stop the burning. By the time the first drop fell, the heat would be so intense that only a flood could halt the destruction. His priority was to get home as quickly as was prudent. There was so much left to do.

The woman had given in more easily than he’d imagined. If it had been him, he’d have fought to the last, would have focused every ounce of anger and bile on resisting. She had pleaded, begged and in the end cried feebly and howled. Life was cheap, he thought, because the general populace failed to appreciate its value. He understood. He constantly pushed himself to the limits of his capability, strove to learn, to surpass. He burned with a thirst for knowledge like others craved money, making it hard to find an equal. That was why he’d been forced to kill. Without her sacrifice, he would forever have been surrounded by women unable to satisfy his intellect.

He listened to a language CD as he drove. He liked to learn a new language each year. This time it was Spanish. Easier than many, he admitted to himself guiltily, but then he had an exhausting amount of other matters on his mind. He couldn’t be expected to pick up anything more complex whilst doing so much research and travelling.

‘It’s not as if I’ve had any free time.’ A rabbit dashed out from the verge. He slammed on his brakes, less from a desire to avoid it than with the shock of the movement in his peripheral vision. ‘Damn it!’ He was distracted and he’d been talking to himself again. He only did that when he was overtired. And stressed. He’d stayed up late arguing. Whoever thought it was an easy task persuading an intelligent woman to do what was best for her, was a fool. It was a challenge, even for a man of his faculties. The brighter the woman, the harder it was. But rewarding in the end.

He pulled over at the outskirts of Edinburgh and drank passably warm coffee from a flask. He couldn’t risk going into a cafe. In spite of the lack of interest he was likely to generate – no one wanted to stare at a middle-aged, saggy-bellied man with an unsightly bald patch – it would be stupid to have his likeness caught on CCTV returning to the city along this route.

The Spanish voice droned in the background until he hit the off switch. It was such a big day, why shouldn’t he take a break for once? A lady was waiting at home, needing substantial care and attention. She wouldn’t be able to talk clearly for a while, in fact she would probably need speech therapy. Luckily for her, he was a gifted tutor in many fields. It would be his pleasure and privilege to assist.